I couldn't believe my eyes when I heard the statistics from the UK. In the UK, if you take all the messaging apps, so Facebook, WhatsApp, whatever, Google, whatever, 75% of the traffic today is Snapchat which means that the upload and the different way of communicating is actually stimulating a lot of usage. Which is why we're convinced that this — our strategy was right in going into bundling mobile and video.

It could be that Snapchat users are using so much data compared with the app's competitors because Snapchat is designed to send data-heavy videos and photos. While you can send and view videos and photos on other messaging apps, it's not a prerequisite of their services. Nevertheless, it is another way to measure Snapchat's success versus that of messaging rivals. Snapchat may have only about 200 million users to Facebook Messenger's 600 million and WhatsApp's 800 million (also owned by Facebook,) but it seems Snapchat users might be a lot more active on the app.

Vodafone's CEO says Snapchat data consumption has grown 260% in the past six months. While heavy data use from customers initially requires mobile carriers to invest in the infrastructure to support it, over the long-term it can drive up the average revenue carriers receive from each customer.

And with mobile video use continuing to grow, Vodafone hopes to upgrade more customers to faster, more expensive 4G data plans. A cohort analysis, which Vodafone used in its presentation to investors during its earnings call last week, shows the value of data to the company. 4G adds at least £1 ($1.54) in revenue per user.